AThe Journal News, White Plains, New York, Wednesday, March 04, 1959
Ex-Chess Champion A Spring Valley Resident
Samuel Reshevsky Hopes to Recapture His American Title
By Richard Einhorn
If chess is considered a sport, then Samuel Reshevsky of Spring Valley must be the most famous athlete in Rockland County. Mr. Reshevsky, five feet two inches tall, has dominated American chess since 1936.
Now 47, he has been in the public eye longer than Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio, or Ted Williams. Louis and DiMaggio, or Ted Williams. Louis and DiMaggio have retired, and Williams is near the end of the trail, but Reshevsky is playing as well as ever.
His ambition is to become champion of the world. He is determined to win that honor although he has been stripped of his United States title by a high school boy of immense talent.
Followers Optimistic
Reshevsky's followers feel that his loss to a 15-year-old Bobby Fischer was a fluke, that the famed international grandmaster will gain revenge on his brilliant young rival.
“I understand there are plans to arrange a match between Bobby Fischer and myself,” Reshevsky said last week. “I think everybody would like to see this match materialize.”
But Fischer hasn't said he's willing.
Like other leading American chess players, Reshevsky is starved for competition. He has gone for stretches of almost a year without playing in a tournament.
“What we need are at least four big events a year. I expected more from our players who are now in their twenties, but they haven't had enough competition.”
He said the best hope lies in young players like Bobby Fischer.
“It is a tremendous thing for the future of American chess that Fischer is so young,” Reshevsky said. “Youngsters all over the country are getting better.”
Likes Spring Valley
Reshevsky said that moving to Spring Valley from New York was one of the best things that had ever happened to him.
“It is quiet and peaceful,” he said. “A chess player needs rest and relaxation. You can hardly find a chess player in this town, though,” he added.
Most of Reshevsky's time has been spent at home with his wife, Norma, and their three children.
“Joel and Sylvia play chess,” he said proudly. “Only my two-year-old daughter doesn't.”
Reshevsky came to the United States in 1920 from Poland after having toured Europe as a nine-year-old prodigy. But his parents and advisers made him take time out from chess to complete his education.
He was a pitcher on his high school baseball team. Later he attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in mathematics.
Reshevsky said he would like to go into the insurance business in New York. His training apart from chess was in accountancy. He owns a number of chess sets, but his favorite is an olivewood set he won last year in a tournament in Israel.
Keeping his identity as a chess player, even when not playing a game, is no problem, he says. Every one of his dozens of neck-ties bears a chess symbol of some sort.
Reshevsky's future hopes center on a match with Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, the reigning world's champion. Botvinnik is Reshevsky's age, and he too, has held his own against younger men.
“Strange as it may seem,” Reshevsky said, “chess is a very taxing game. But if you have your health and lead a normal life you can remain a serious contender for many, many years. Botvinnik started at the same time I did.”
Reshevsky's recent record against Botvinnik has been good. In a team match between the United States and the Soviet Union in Moscow, Reshevsky won one and drew the other of their encounters.
Drew Four Games
Reshevsky also drew four games in a team match in New York with Vassily Smyslov, a Russian who temporarily displaced Botvinnik as champion. Most experts rate Smyslov on a par with Botvinnik.
“There isn't much to choose between Smyslov and Botvinnik,” Reshevsky said.
Besides Botvinnik and Smyslov, there are at least two other Soviet players of world championship caliber. And still others are clamoring for their place in the sun.
Why do the Russians have so many good players, Reshevsky was asked.
“All the good players in the U.S.S.R. are subsidized,” he explained. “They can devote all their time to chess.”
In a free enterprise system, he said, chess would have to be commercialized to permit players to compete full time. He said he hoped a promoter like Jack Kramer would sponsor touring groups of chess professionals.
[EDITOR NOTE — Reporter Dick Einhorn, Columbia University, was formerly a Chess Master. He has defeated, in informal games, United States Champion Bobby Fischer, and former American champs, Larry Evans, Arthur Bisguier, and Arnold Denker.]
